I’m 28 weeks pregnant in the middle of July and I am not thriving. One thing I am excited about is my upcoming baby sprinkle. We’re inviting some local friends and this has given me a newfound drive to finally get my house in order.
If you have questions for me, make sure to submit them here because soon I will be going on maternity leave and want to get enough episodes queued up to sustain the weekly release schedule while I’m gone.
This episode, we discuss…
[5:33] Picking paint for a primary bedroom (Christina)
[16:55] Adding pops of pink to a room (Tanya)
[5:33] Picking paint for a primary bedroom (Christina)
Question:
We are finally upgrading our Ikea bedroom furniture with the Arhaus Miller bedroom set and the Kinnan bed in Vance Olive. Since we are redoing the furniture I want to take this opportunity to put a fresh coat of paint on the walls. I would like something a little exciting, but also timeless, and something that would go with the hues of our new furniture. The bedroom has two North facing windows and 1 East and 1 South. I’m open to dark or light colors. Thank you!
Answer:
First of all, let me describe the furniture because the pictures that you sent me are really good in terms of the architecture but it seems like none of the furniture that’s currently in the space is the furniture you’ll be having because the Arhaus Miller bedroom set is very different than the dressers and nightstands I’m seeing in these pictures.
The new bedroom set is much more contemporary whereas it appears now that the pieces that you have are contemporary/transitional. I love the style of these new pieces and I really do adore Arhaus because the pieces really can straddle different style lines and look so unique. It can be hard to pinpoint exactly where they’re from unless you know this website well. I love the walnut finish on the casegoods so you can definitely see the wood grain. It’s a mid tone walnut, it looks very natural but yet has very clean lines and is sleek. I think that this is a lovely choice in terms of the casegoods even though I wouldn’t typically buy a bedroom set.
I might do two of the same nightstand but then I would have each dresser be different or I might have the dressers be the same if I was going to do two different nightstands.
You mentioned that you’re going to be getting the Kinnon bed in Vance olive. That’s a very deep green color and it’s also velvet. The headboard is pretty chunky with rounded edges and really beautiful. It’s got curved sides, and it’s not too high, which I think will work really well in this room because the ceilings don’t appear to be much higher than normal.
The one thing I will say is all of this furniture is pretty dark. You mentioned that you want to do something bold, yet timeless. When I’m hearing bold, I’m either hearing dark neutral or I’m hearing color. Now if I was going to choose a color we already have a prominent color in this room with all of green. The key piece in this room, the bed in the bedroom, is going to be olive green so you’ll want to create a color palette that has that color as part of the 60/30/10.
You’re also going to need an inspiration piece. If you were going to do a ROYGBIV color for the walls, you would want to derive it from that inspiration piece and use it as a part of your 60/30/10. I would never arbitrarily tell you to do this color or do that color. Now, we want to be mindful that we don’t want the room to get too cool. For a number of reasons, you don’t want any color palette to just be too cool, because it’s not dynamic and interesting.
That doesn’t mean you have to go for pinks or reds. You could do something beautiful with a yellow ochre. You could do rust. Rust would really look great with the olive green. Typically instead of creating a color palette first and then finding an inspiration piece that goes with that I find the inspiration piece first. I’m going to recommend that you think about that when you’re looking for your inspiration piece because I could see this room getting dark and muddy based on the items that I saw.
I also think that even though you told me that this room has a good size, these cropped curtains over the radiator are not really working for me and might be eating up some of that good light. So you want to be thinking about that if you’re going to do a dark color.
It’s very strange to me that not all of the windows are treated. Right now, there’s three untreated windows and there’s two windows that are treated. You want to keep that more consistent so that all the windows have the same treatment. That might mean that because there’s a radiator under one or two of the windows, that you do a blind or something more minimal. I’m not saying you must do drapes in here, but all of these things need to inform the pink color.
Typically, when I’m designing a space, I pick the pink color at the end. If you’re wanting to go bold, if you’re wanting to do these splashes of color, or do something really intense, it’s quite important that you pick out all the furnishings in advance, and pick the color at the end because I can choose from thousands of paint colors but I can only choose from a handful of inspiration pieces that I love that are going to have both olive green and yellow ochre.
This is a way that you can narrow things down and work systematically to make sure that everything looks great together and that you pink color, rather than feeling like an afterthought feels like an intentional augmentation of the design you’ve started to create.
[16:55] Adding pops of pink to a room (Tanya)
Question:
Our house has 2 living rooms and one is a tv room and the other is a piano/reading room. It’s still a work in progress. We recently painted it and it’s a little bolder than expected but I like it. I want to add some pink/magenta accents (pillows and a pink or patterned upholstered chair at the piano). I know I still need a rug and a coffee table. My question is how do I make this room more inviting. And if u have time what type and or shape of coffee table should i do. White? Wood? Thanks for your time and your podcast. I appreciate it!
Follow Up Question:
I have previously submitted a question. Just sending a picture of a different viewpoint. Our dining room is more traditional and wood heavy than the living room I’m focused on. Would like to eventually get a different set or more modern chairs to the set. Try and tie the 2 rooms together more. Thanks again!
Answer:
It sounds like you’re wanting to make the room feel more cozy and welcoming. Then you also need that coffee table shape. First, let me describe the room for those of you who are not watching along on YouTube.
Right now, the living room is like a shade of ocean blue, I would say because it’s definitely more blue than green. There’s a few different styles going on so I’m feeling conflicted. We’ve got a Sputnik chandelier in the living room that’s white. Then we have a small geometric mirror that’s really too small above that sofa, because remember my 50 to 75% rule. While I love this hexagonal shape, I do think that the size is making it too small for this area, but turn it vertically and it could go in lots of different places in this room.
You have two sofas with rolled arms and they’re both navy on a gray plush carpeting. The thing that’s bothering me about this is that you appear to have several styles going on. At the piano, you’ve got a tapered leg chair that looks like it’s in a blue velvet, but then this rolled arm situation. Then the Sputnik and tapered leg is taking me in a mid century modern direction. Then your lamps have crystal bases that have cube stacked on top of each other but the shades are quite bold with these jelly bean type shapes in mid century modern colors of light olive, tangerine, and powder blue. I’m feeling like this room has a bit of a loss of identity. I’m wondering what your two word phrase is.
I’m also wondering what two word phrase you want to embody because when I’m looking into the dining room, the furniture is really very traditional. The table, chairs and hutch all appear to be a matching set with ornate carvings. It’s like a mid tone warm kind of honey wood. It’s totally incongruous with what we just saw in the other room.
I feel like the thing that would make it more inviting is to make it feel more cohesive and intentional. Right now, it feels like a collection of found objects. So for me, this would feel more comfortable and inviting if you had a two word phrase that you would actually stick to for both rooms that open into each other.
If you would get a larger piece above the sofa so that it feels more proportional. If you would take the kind of spread out linear alignment of artwork that you have spanning from across the fireplace mantel all the way above this cubby bookcase, and instead turn it into an asymmetrical configuration above the fireplace that doesn’t extend past the mantel. I think that could be really cool – kind of this curated mini gallery wall above the fireplace because I love all the colors in this artwork. I also love the idea that you’re open to a lot of color in this space, which is really not what we’re seeing in your dining room. Right now, it feels really haphazard and like you kind of are just hanging things on preexisting nails versus doing something intentional.
The other thing that I think would really bring the two rooms together is doing the same window treatment that’s in the living room and bring it into the dining room. Now in this case your living room windows are bare and your dining room windows appear to have a navy patterned drape.
I would continue those same drapes as long as it aligns with the color palette that you’re going to create with some kind of inspiration piece that you’re going to bring in here. I would bring those same drapes into these windows in the living room. I think that will make a huge difference and make it feel warmer and more inviting because we’re breaking up all these sort of ocean blue walls with a warmer texture and fabric.
Tanya, let me in on a good note. I love the fact that you’ve taken bold choices with your wall paint color. I love the fact that you have playful tchotchkes on your floating shelves. I love the fact that you’re obviously not afraid to take some risks. I am excited for you to channel all this energy into something that feels cohesive and based around an inspiration item.
Links:
Website:
Book:
https://www.betsyhelmuth.com/my-book
Become a Premium Member:
https://www.affordableinteriordesign.com/podcast
Submit Your Questions:
https://www.affordableinteriordesign.com/podcast
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/affordableinteriordesign
Facebook:
